Climate Change

In late January, the CCPA came out with a paper about "just transition" -- an approach that aims to minimize the impact of environmental policies on workers and communities in affected industries -- for resource workers.

I sat down with one of the report's coauthors, Karen Cooling, a former resource-sector worker and union representative who specializes in relationship-building between resource workers and environmentalists.

On Monday, the Council of Canadians made a submission to the B.C. Environment Assessment Office calling on the B.C. government to reject the Woodfibre LNG project.

If approved the Woodfibre terminal, seven kilometres from downtown Squamish, would produce roughly 2.1 million metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), fracked gas that has been turned into liquid by cooling the gas to -163C. The LNG would then be shipped on tankers through Howe Sound for export.

Here's why the Council of Canadians is calling for a stop to the Woodfibre LNG project:

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is one of the most widely respected political figures to emerge from Canada's Arctic, and this potential was identified early on. When she was just 10 years old, she and her friend Lizzie were selected as promising future Inuit leaders and sent to live with a white family in the tiny coastal community of Blanche, N.S. Having grown up in Nunavik, Que., on dog sleds and in canoes, the young Watt-Cloutier loved new experiences and approached the long voyage south in the spirit of adventure. The girls were in for what Watt-Cloutier now describes as a "brutal shock."

Twenty-two years ago, the United Nations General Assembly declared March 22 to be World Water Day. In a world facing a severe and growing water crisis without a roadmap, this day is more important than ever.

The country pledges for the Paris 2015 climate summit aren't adding up yet to stop the planet's temperature increasing by more than two degrees Celsius.

The Guardianreports, "That is the stark conclusion of a report by a team led by British economist Nicholas Stern. The group, based at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, concludes that action planned by countries -- in particular the European Union, the U.S. and China -- will still leave the world emitting 20 billion tonnes of carbon a year in excess of levels needed to prevent global warming from having devastating consequences."

Many people think of Canada as a landscape of forests, mountains, water and ice, but the Canadian experience is fast becoming focused on glass and concrete. Our 2011 census revealed that 81 per cent of us now live in cities. And despite taking up less land space, our environmental impact continues to grow. As the UN notes, cities cover only two per cent of the world's land area but produce 60 per cent of CO2 emissions -- including a significant proportion from urban transportation, as people commute to school and work on increasingly crowded roads and transit networks.

I stopped shopping for pleasure during our strike last summer. While losing large chunks of salary each week, I simply could not afford the pleasure of purchasing that new summer outfit.

I still could not afford to shop for pleasure in the fall when we finally returned to work. And even though by December I had income from two jobs, I did not shop for Christmas presents. I sent wishes instead of presents to friends and family.

But, just as I was beginning to feel smug about the financial benefits of this self-imposed austerity, the spring shopping catalogues started showing up in my mailbox.

So many pretty cardigans! Such cute dresses! I had to have those jeans!

Canada's economy has been thrown into turmoil by the dramatic decline in oil prices over the last six months. World crude prices have plunged by half: from around $100 (US) per barrel in summer 2014, to around $50 today (see Figure 1). Worse yet, Canada's oil output receives an even lower price: our unprocessed heavy oil exports sell for only about $35 per barrel in the U.S. market (because of its lower quality and a regional supply glut).

Don't

The Council of Canadians has been opposing the Site C dam since March.

Site C is a proposed 60-metre high, 1,050-metre-long earth-filled dam and hydroelectric generation station that would be located on the Peace River between the communities of Hudson's Hope and Taylor in northeastern British Columbia. It would create an 83-kilometre-long reservoir and flood about 5,550 hectares of agricultural land southwest of Fort St. John. It would submerge 78 First Nations heritage sites, including burial grounds and places of cultural and spiritual significance.